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How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

• meerita 5y ago
  Last year I rented a reformed old fabric and I cannot be more happy with. The building is really well done now and it's energy efficent. I usually turn on the heat for a couple of minutes and the flat stays warn for hours. The windows are really good not only to keep the heat but also letting light in and blocking 95% of the sounds.
• dave333 5y ago
  They should also look at the Skytherm Roof which can both heat and cool a building passively. See https://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/harold-hay-skytherm-and-the-quest-for-passive-cooling_o https://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/harold-hay-skyt...
  • CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
    I don't see anything about heating a building?
    • codefreakxff 5y ago
      It’s vaguely in the article. Says in the winter the process is reversed
• Terry_Roll 5y ago
  Its all very well using environmental energy sources to heat and cool a building, but very little attention is given over to clearing the air. Besides the pollutants from cleaning products and product breakdown, CO2 levels inside a building can have a stimulating effect on the body, which kind of destroys the purpose of a relaxation of a home.
  • surfmike 5y ago
    The passive house standard requires mechnical ventilation using heat exchangers to minimize energy loss. http://tepperarchitects.com/?p=522 http://tepperarchitects.com/?p=522
    • Terry_Roll 5y ago
      Yeah but what is a healthy Air Changes per Hour (ACH)? The building regs here in the UK are a bit all over the place, I had to direct some questions to the local authority planning dept because their legislation was like a poorly written computer program and they couldnt answer the questions. The legislation doesnt quantify the risks properly imo, at least here in the UK.
      • grey-area 5y ago
        This article is about passive houses, which have very good ventilation (they have to, because the building is hermetically sealed apart from the HVAC). So the air quality is much better than normal homes without a dedicated ventilation system.
      • jakewins 5y ago
        The houses I’ve seen control the exchange rate with air quality sensors - so, if you are having a party, the ventilation speeds up, and when the house is empty it slows down. That said, in the US the ACH rate is recommended at 0.35 by ASHRAE, see https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/how-much-ventilation-do-i-need-my-home-improve-indoor-air-quality https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/how-much-ventilat...
        • Terry_Roll 5y ago
          Yeah but its not measuring the quality of the air. Houses are just passive particulate collecting devices, ie particulates travelling on the air outside, move into the house, meet a stationary or slower moving body of air, lose momentum and velocity and thus succumbs to the effects of gravity and hits a surface. Considering woman have traditionally been the one's cleaning the house for the living abode for hundreds of years, why havent they come up with something better to filter the air inside a property seeing as there is this push to get females into STEM?
• SenHeng 5y ago
  I'm in the middle of building a PassivHaus. The building itself is mostly done and we're working on the interior. There are still a few gaps that haven't been plugged and the heat exchangers have not yet been installed. I'm above 800m elevation, snowstorms every weekend. It's cold here. My house also actually faces West instead of South, so I'm not getting much heat from the sun. This was a surprise to use because the previous house on the same site had the same orientation and was scorching during the evenings, it's amazing what a pair of Low-E triple paned windows can do. Despite all that, the builders manage to work inside the building with a single kerosene stove[0]. And the building stays comfortable for several hours even after the stove has been turned off. [0]: https://nimmi.jp/kurashi-stove/ https://nimmi.jp/kurashi-stove/
  • inovica 5y ago
    Sounds great. Do you have a blog or anything online about your project?
    • SenHeng 5y ago
      Unfortunately no.
  • osobo 5y ago
    I'm looking into making a house sustainable right now and the windows are actually a point of contention. One side thinks super-high insulated (triple pane) windows are a waste of money, the other swears by them. Assuming the frame doesn't leak, does triple really make that much of a difference?
    • liveoneggs 5y ago
      they are worth it in cold climates if you use fixed or very fancy casement windows with maintained seals. Double-hung will just leak around frames and sides. Also ensure you use a good brand which will be around when you need a replacement and hope to get an actual match.
    • yoyopa 5y ago
• locallost 5y ago
  I watched a report on a block of "passive houses" in Germany and the people liked it, but had a complaint that the air is too dry, so they dried their laundry indoors. I'm a fan of the idea, so not really critical, but I wonder what it's really like to live in one.
  • chippytea 5y ago
    Modern heat exchangers allow you to set the air humidity.
  • dredmorbius 5y ago
    Indoor plants are also useful in this regard, as the plants (and their containers) will return humidity to the air.
  • poseva 5y ago
    Instead of a heat recovery ventilation you can use energy recovery ventilation which gets back some of the humidity, otherwise just buy a cheap electric boiling humidifier and it you get the job done. What is important that in the coldest part of the winter you can turn down the ventilation to a minimal, something like 0.3 hourly exchanges per hour.
    • KaiserPro 5y ago
      > winter you can turn down the ventilation to a minimal The problem is that the Heat exchanger actively draws moisture out, as it has a huge cold surface area that forces water out of the air. If you don't change the air it feels stuffy.
      • netjiro 5y ago
        You can buy heat exchangers with very high efficiency and good moisture reclamation or suppression for a slightly higher cost. The problem is usually that the customer does not look into the details and the construction company can increase profits by buying cheaper versions. A good modern ventilation energy exchange unit for a 300m2 house can be <30dB, >90% efficiency, and return a lot of humidity.
• Mromson 5y ago
  It saddens me that construction quality is almost irrelevant when building a new building nowadays. The profit difference between a well-isolated passive building and one that merely meets the minimal standards, is often very small, so why bother building a passive building? My personal interest in passive buildings generally revolve around maintenance. Passive houses seem to require far less maintenance.
  • sb057 5y ago
    >The profit difference between a well-isolated passive building and one that merely meets the minimal standards, is often very small, so why bother building a passive building? People making decisions about which contractor to use (both for public and private projects) are often mandated to choose the absolute cheapest bidder, sometimes with the ability of choosing a different one if they file mountains of paperwork explaining why.
    • pjerem 5y ago
      That's what norms are for. If minimal thermal requirements are written in the law, even the cheapest builder must build a highly insulated home. In my country, it's mandatory to have well insulated home, to prove (with tests) that you respect the norms, and it's also mandatory to have renewable heat source (mainly heat pumps). Sure, it costs a little more, but with the rise of real estate prices, it's still way cheaper to build well insulated houses. The building cost since those new norms increased about maybe dozens of thousands euros. It's not even a lot given the exceptional thermal comfort you get from your money.
  • LunaSea 5y ago
    > Passive houses seem to require far less maintenance. Interesting! Could you explain a bit more on how you came to this conclusion?
    • Mromson 5y ago
      In general, this conclusion comes from the notion that a passive house has fewer moving parts and requires less attention. A poorly insulated house demands that you take more active measures to ensure that it keeps a positive temperature (so water pipes don't freeze), this is extra pertinent should the power go out. A well-insulated house is also likely to have fewer points of failure (water getting into cracks and whatnot). A proper passive house generally only has one maintenance point, which is the ventilation / air filtration system, and temperature control is easy. You don't have to worry much about the insides being too hot or too cold, as it should keep whatever temperature you set regardless of the weather outside. With all that said, you should generally take everything I said with a grain of doubt, as I'm not an expert, and someone could well shoot down all my points in the comments. ;-) My prime goal with any house I buy is to make sure that I have to do as little as possible; never worry about water being in the wrong place, and never worry about the power bill, or temperature in general.
• mcot2 5y ago
  I wish more municipalities would mandate tighter homes with good ventilation. Recently when searching for a new home it was so dishearting to see brand new developments where the homes had standard insulation, bad orientation for things like solar and passive heating and giant fossil fuel based heating systems instead of heat pumps. I decided to instead go the oppostie direction and buy a 1960’s split level that I am modernizing. It’s been quite a challenge to retrofit, we really need to be building to a higher standard for new stock. While renewable energy is all the rage this rarely gets a mention.
  • jsiaajdsdaa 5y ago
    In America the latest building craze seems to be a veneer of beauty over bad functional design, and a strong mentality of "fuck you pay me" from the seller.
    • gambiting 5y ago
      What do you mean "latest"? Hasn't it (almost) always been like this?
      • jsiaajdsdaa 5y ago
        Some houses used to be built on nice plots of land with non-shoe-box design, but I would argue that paying 1.5M for a "new" home depot material house on a postage stamp of land that will literally collapse when the particle board that supports the drywall gets wet... is not very good value for money. It happens, youtube has the proof of it sadly!
        • gambiting 5y ago
          >>Some houses used to be built on nice plots of land with non-shoe-box design, Yes, but I feel like even "back then" that was an exception rather than the norm. There is a LOT of very poorly built houses around, and it's not just the problem with modern construction. Modern house prices and scarcity has made it worse, sure, but it feels like "built to the cheapest possible standard" was always a thing.
• dt3ft 5y ago
  I'd love to see them try this in Sweden :)
  • dredmorbius 5y ago
    Fairbanks, AK: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Xen_VWyDezY https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Xen_VWyDezY
  • m_eiman 5y ago
    There are plenty of passive houses in Sweden.
    • alkonaut 5y ago
      They are quite different in construction though. The insulation on this house corresponds to a garage in the nordics today, or how the building code looked in the 1970s and 1980s. Today the code requires twice this much insulation for a normal home (around 300mm), and it's still nowhere near a passive one.
  • locallost 5y ago
    One well known example of modern efficient houses is the one Amory Lovins built in the Rocky Mountains in the US. It gets quite cold there, yet he likes to point out he grows bananas in the house.
    • dredmorbius 5y ago
      Can confirm, I visited RMI in the early 2000s. The entire structure is built with the climate and site in mind. Large south-facing windows, thermal mass in the floor and walls. At the time, the major energy draw was laserprinters, given that the xerographic process used relies on a heating element kept at about 400F. Switching to inkjet printers was a major energy gain (though ink costs might make this a financial wash).
  • fy20 5y ago
    Come to Lithuania (we have winters of -25C and summers of 35C). All new homes have to be build to a building code that actually exceeds Passive House in some cases. In our apartment (built 2016) we don't even turn on the heating until it gets close to 0c outside.
• _Microft 5y ago
  Note that the sun is towards north in NZ.
• tigerlily 5y ago
  > there is no excuse for New Zealand homes to be damp, cold or drafty Yet we build them this way over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...
  • bogle 5y ago
    Lack of building regs?
• mattlondon 5y ago
  I wonder how these "no heating"/"no cooling" homes work in situations like mine: my wife is permanently freezing cold, sitting around inside with multiple layers on, sometimes a blanket, and the heating on full-blast while I am walking around in shorts and t-shirt sweating? I.e. people have different ideas about what a comfortable temperature is. In my wife's example it seems like unless she can actually "feel the heat" as it were, she is not comfortable.
  • jsiaajdsdaa 5y ago
    Sounds like one of you might have a health condition. She could be underweight or anemic, you could be overweight or etc.
    • guythedudebro 5y ago
      I think one of them is a woman.
    • mellavora 5y ago
      Maybe not a health condition, might just be the body's set point. There are three biological states: body is cold and needs to warm itself, body temp is right (no effort required), body is hot and needs to cool itself. I was born in hot southern climate, my wife in a cold norther climate. For me, "body is cold" is rather unnatural and uncomfortable. For my wife, "body is hot" is the same. Her internal furnace is always on, my internal cooling system is always on. She is happiest at 18C ambient, I am happiest at 22C. If you want a biological mechanism to explain this, it's called epigenetics, and the key factor would be the environment your mother was in while you were in the womb and she was forming your body.
      • darkwater 5y ago
        I'm not 100% sure of this. Totally anecdotal but... I was born and raised in a continental climate, where during winters most day you would stay between -2C and 1C and sometimes you can get -10C during nights. I remember feeling cold but it wasn't that extreme. Then in my twenties I moved to a warmer, near the sea place where a cold winter is when you get 2/3 Celsius degrees in the coldest night and after a few years of that life, now when I go back the place where I was born in winter, I feel fucking cold (and I have special winter jackets for that).
• poseva 5y ago
  I've also built a simple and small (99sqm) PassivHaus in Romania, 5 years ago. Everybody, and I mean everybody from family to friends called me nuts, but I've got my payback this winter when the energy prices went trough the roof and I'm just slightly affected. The house is elevated from the ground on 12 concrete columns so that I can insulate under the foundation beams using glass foam, insulation on walls is 30 cm of EPS graphite, underfloor 45 cm EPS and on the roof, 50 cm and the orientation is full on south. For heating it consumes about 1500-2000 kWh per year (December, January, February and a maybe a small part of March) What is the big difference between houses built in North America and Europe is that the European houses are built using concrete and masonry which give them a lot of thermal mass which is crucial to this kind of builds. Have a look here [0], this is the first PassivHaus in my area and is nicely documented. The cost of building a PassivHaus in my country typically goes about 20-25% more than a traditional one. [0]: http://www.sdac.ro/site/archives/category/passivehouse http://www.sdac.ro/site/archives/category/passivehouse
  • kitd 5y ago
    It is interesting that you insulate under the house. One of the more intriguing passive house designs I saw was one where the insulation went down 2-3m into the ground all around the house footprint. This trapped the natural ground heat within that area and fed it upwards into the house. It took about 18 months for the ground to warm up, but once it was there, the ground/house warmed itself with virtually no input. This was in the UK. Colder climates may vary ofc.
    • Gravityloss 5y ago
      How would that work? Average temperature in the UK is about 15 C. If your house is at 24 C, this would mean you are constantly leaking heat into the ground from the bottom... I guess one can consider the cube of earth an insulator, it's got a lousy insulation value per meter but it makes it up in thickness.
      • arethuza 5y ago
        Don't think 15C is correct - looks more like 8.5C to 11C in England and 7C to 9C in Scotland. http://projectbritain.com/weather/average.htm http://projectbritain.com/weather/average.htm
• dhruval 5y ago
  Reminds me of 'Earthship Houses' that are completely off grid, recycle their waste water to grow crops, are built using repurposed car tires and grow their own food. There is a community in New Mexico https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgUkjbMhF18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgUkjbMhF18 And even some in Canada https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAvY5JeMz9w&t=62s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAvY5JeMz9w&t=62s
  • masklinn 5y ago
    Also reminiscent of a Canadian (?) advocate from the late 20th century, can’t remember his name. Actually built a huge passive house with a large internal greenhouse and a small stream for air quality.
  • 35mm 5y ago
    Yes! Any they typically make good use of passive + solar thermal management. For example automated window openings to draw heat through etc
  • shlant 5y ago
    that Earthship in Canada is owned by my best friends parents! It still get's pretty cold in the winter (Lethbridge winters are incredibly cold and windy) so it took some acclimatizing when they first moved in. I think they have improved it somewhat since then.
  • goodpoint 5y ago
    Earthship are very low density unfortunately. Good at reducing the environmental and economical impact of the house itself but now you have to drive a car instead of living car-free in a walkable city.
    • dhruval 5y ago
      Good point. I wonder what the environmental impact is of high density housing in cities vs low density (earth houses). I think it probably does make sense for rural communities.
  • 5y ago
• bawolff 5y ago
  I'm kind of curious what weather range they are talking about. As someone from Canada, i somehow don't think this would work over here in the -40 winter.
  • masklinn 5y ago
    Canada was actually one of the early study and proving grounds for passive houses, due to the oil shock (look up the Saskatchewan Conservation House). Sadly much like most other such actions, they were quickly discarded once the shock receded, but the german Passivhaus Institut was actually founded on the basis of that study and model house.
  • dx034 5y ago
    I lived in a PassivHouse in Germany. Didn't need to heat if it was more than 4C outside (less if more people were at home). I never experienced -40C, but at -20C it worked fine. Probably the only time all heating had to run to some degree 24/7. I'm sure that -40C would've been fine as well. In the end it all doesn't matter. You build the house to some standard and then design the heating system to be able to cover thermal loss for the expected temperature range. In Canada you'd probably just add twice as much heating as you would in most of Europe. But especially at those temperatures, very well insulated homes will save a ton of money. The only part that kind of worked less well at very low temperatures was the heat exchanger for the ventilation system. It didn't run at full capacity if it was well below freezing. But I guess there are other systems out there which are designed for -40C as well.
  • timonoko 5y ago
    Does not work at all. In Finland we have disastrous situation with pre-90's "Bottle"-houses with air-tight insulation. Not enough circulation and dangerous mildew blooms. All this lower 50's German crap about heat pumps and heat exchanges does not make much sense. Once again. Not a surprise.
• pdamoc 5y ago
  My favorite approach remains the Dome of Visions - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bn2o-xyS6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bn2o-xyS6M
  • pkdpic 5y ago
    Cool project and name. Ive always been curious if domes like this become problematic in hot weather though or if they have some dynamic that makes them beneficial then too. Not sure how to google that but maybe someone knows.
• bythreads 5y ago
  Checkout poroton, as a building material it is near impossible to beat - high insulation, low total cost, humidity seeps slowly thorugh the walls and termal mass is massive
• PinguTS 5y ago
  In Austria an architect build an office building completely without any heating at all [1]. And now after the first experiences he is doing it for clients as well [2]. It works. [1] https://www.detail-online.com/article/house-without-heating-office-building-in-austria-16667/ https://www.detail-online.com/article/house-without-heating-... [2] https://www.world-architects.com/en/baumschlager-eberle-architekten-lustenau/project/2226-lingenau-no-cooling-no-heating https://www.world-architects.com/en/baumschlager-eberle-arch...
• ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  They mention that they avoid over sealing, for local climate reasons but an interesting technique/gadget for sealing the air barrier is to vapourize some caulk type stuff in the air and force air in through a fan. As the air escapes through small holes it fills them. Apparently without this you need to be very careful while building, while this lets you go a little faster and sort it out after. https://www.finehomebuilding.com/2013/05/15/a-shortcut-for-air-sealing-houses https://www.finehomebuilding.com/2013/05/15/a-shortcut-for-a... There's also a recent development where just slapping on some solar panels can sometimes make more sense than extra insulation, in terms of cost and return.
• ricardo81 5y ago
  I'm in the UK which has one of the oldest/energy inefficient housing stocks in Europe. After buying a house built in 1890 I've been made more aware how poor they can be. After replacing the old secondary glazed windows and replacing the old inefficient gas boiler, I'm moving onto replacing the front and back door, and insulating the suspended floor, walls and room in roof. The walls are solid whinstone about 600mm thick which I'd have expected to be a good insulator but in reality they're a thermal bridge. For generation, I've reserved a spot in Rippleenergy's next co-op turbine [0]. I've been looking into PV/solar thermal/solar battery combinations as well as heat batteries. Sunamp's looks interesting [1] and phase change materials in general. Living in a high latitude (Scotland) the benefit in Winter is more marginal but I'd be happy with simply covering the cost and having peace of mind where the energy came from. PVT panels look interesting if not well-known/scarce. There's so many parts to the answer it seems like energy advisors could be more of a thing in the same way financial advisors are plentiful. [0] https://rippleenergy.com/ https://rippleenergy.com/ [1] https://sunamp.com/thermino-thermal-storage-for-domestic-hot-water/ https://sunamp.com/thermino-thermal-storage-for-domestic-hot...
  • KaiserPro 5y ago
    The next most effective thing to do is External wall insulation. However that'll mean that you'll loose the whinstone look. (unless you pay a _lot_ to get whinstone like shims put on after) The alternative is to have internal wall insulation: https://www.insulationsuperstore.co.uk/product/vacutherm-vacupor-nt-b2-vacuum-insulated-panel-600mm-x-250mm-x-20mm.html https://www.insulationsuperstore.co.uk/product/vacutherm-vac... This is as effective as ~150mm of rockwool, but only 20mm thick. So this can be stuck behind plaster/plasterboard. but its not easy to work with, or widespread yet.
    • ricardo81 5y ago
      Yes, it's one of the top recommendations (internal wall insulation) on my EPC and have had a survey. 60mm PIR boards would be used. Turns out I wouldn't have to sacrifice much space but would have to pay a bit extra replacing the cornices. There are some regional grants in the UK that can cover a large portion of the amount. For me, it is £7.5K, with the quote I received at £9K. This would not have covered the kitchen or bathroom. Going by EPC recommendations and numbers alone, I can reduce my energy requirement by about 40%.
• KaiserPro 5y ago
  TLDR: point one: you need insulation _everywhere_, along with some thermal mass to make sure there is some inertia to keep temperature even. This means that putting a jacket around the outside of a brick/cement structure is generally better than putting it inside. You need to insulate under the floor. External wall insulation is not overly expensive. Its about 50% more expensive than a standard silicon render (in the UK) Point Two: Windows and doors are normally the weak spot. Standard double glazing has a U value of about 2. Depending on the coating and the position, they can also let in up to 2kw/m2 of heat through solar gain. You need ideally coated triple glazing, which if paired with the correct frames has a U value of about 0.8-1.1 The coating is to reflect solar gain. You will need sun shading so that in winter the sun comes streaming in, but in summer its shaded out by the small shades. In the UK its possible to get triple glazing at about the same price as double. For us, the big companies quoted >15k for shitty double glazing, local company was ~10k, eventual installation price was 8k for triple. This included custom arched door/window, and a french door.
  • masklinn 5y ago
    > Windows and doors are normally the weak spot. Standard double glazing has a U value of about 2. Depending on the coating and the position, they can also let in up to 2kw/m2 of heat through solar gain. Also do be careful of thermal bridges and missing seals at and around the frame. My current rental is relatively well insulated all in all, but one of the huge weakpoints is the stone sill of one of the east-facing windows, I don’t know what the builders fucked up but in winter it can literally serve as a fridge.
  • alkonaut 5y ago
    > Standard double glazing How is the code still allowing new construction with windows having U of 2 (such as double glazing)? A more restrictive code would reduce a country's CO2 footprint, companies would sell more expensive products like windows, and no one except the few constructing new homes would be economically impacted - and obviously only short term, while the economic gains are reaped by everyone. So how is this not politically easy to just...do?
    • 5y ago
• jwr 5y ago
  While this is at the extreme end of the spectrum, there is a much easier way to save lots of energy: just build modern well-insulated homes. I lived in California and I was appalled at the monstrous energy waste: houses are generally made pretty much from cardboard. You need to cool them in summertime and heat them in wintertime, and the energy expenditure is enormous. I now live in Poland and have recently built small homes that are similar in structure to the ones in CA: wooden frame, drywall inside. But the ones here have walls that are 25cm thick because of insulation (mineral wool) and use advanced modern membranes as well. Together, these things do wonders, and maintaining warmth in wintertime using a heat pump (AC) is easy and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. In other words, you can get 80% of the benefits with 20% of the effort — just design thicker walls with insulation and use modern materials.
  • jve 5y ago
    Don't forget to mention that insulating roof is just as important. Otherwise, heat will happily escape over your head.
    • jwr 5y ago
      Yes, I wasn't stating the obvious: you need to insulate the floor and roof as well. For example, reinforced concrete foundation slabs are usually placed over XPS foam boards here. There are many ways to do this, my point was that you don't have to go to extremes to get impressive benefits of modern insulation.
  • bogle 5y ago
    "About the only part of a Californian house you can't put your foot through is the front door." 'The Big Sleep', Raymond Chandler (1939). Good to see nothing's changed!
    • jwr 5y ago
      Oh, this is so very true! In addition, said front door is protected by a flimsy deadbolt that sits in a dinky thin door frame. The whole thing breaks and opens with a kick and offers symbolic, rather than practical protection.
• londons_explore 5y ago
  I think a key issue is that generally the person designing a house isn't the same person who will be paying the energy bills in 30 years time. Few people will pay a lot extra for a better insulated house. The end result is that the cheapest insulation allowed by law is used rather than something that costs more today but saves a lot in the long run. I wonder if a solution to this problem might take the form of "We'll sell you the house, and promise to pay half the energy bill for the next 50 years". Obviously there are issues with that... is there a better way to align incentives?
  • lbriner 5y ago
    I think the assumption is that with regulations, the government can force builders and buyers to accept the higher standards and the associated higher cost in return for the common-good.
  • alkonaut 5y ago
    > I think a key issue is that generally the person designing a house isn't the same person who will be paying the energy bills in 30 years time. Those who build homes must typically be planning on staying at least a few years in them though, say 10? Insulation is pretty cheap compared to running an AC in a poorly insulated home. Also it's not just a cost issue, it's more about comfort. Sleeping in a cool space without an AC blasting is worth something too. The person designing the building codes though is the person responsible for the energy use and supply of the country, it's CO2 emissions and so on. So slowly getting more efficient building codes seems like it should be universal.
• sgt 5y ago
  South Africa here, it's not common to build energy efficient houses although it's gradually getting slightly better. I'm busy changing all my windows to double glazed (single glazed is the norm, believe it or not) and proper insulation in above the ceiling. Instead of freezing my ass off every winter it's now super pleasant, and it's cooler in summer. Such a non-brainer - I just don't understand why people don't do this more.
• morsch 5y ago
  The article shows off snazzy housing for wealthy people, but as far as I know all new housing finished in the EU as of 2021 is supposed to be built to these standards. So it's not restricted to architecture magazine, it's just regular houses. See e.g. https://www.igbc.ie/nzeb/ https://www.igbc.ie/nzeb/
  • jve 5y ago
    Actually, article complains that Building Code is pretty low standard in NZ and that non-wealthy suffers as they live in not-so-well insulated houses. But speaking from northern EU country - yeah, I don't see anyone here building non-insulated houses.
  • rsynnott 5y ago
    nZEB isn't quite the same thing as a passive house; a well-built passive house would qualify as an nZEB, but you could for instance, build an nZEB that had reasonably high thermal losses (thus not a passive house) which it compensates for with loads of solar panels. That said, in practice most nZEBs probably will be passive houses or close; it's probably the most practical way to meet the requirements in most cases.
• lbriner 5y ago
  I think this is one of those things where people generally agree that better insulation and lower energy costs is a good thing but who pays for it? In the UK, there is a constant demand for "affordable housing", which is caused by governments not controlling the housing market from either foreign investors or also people using the housing bubble to buy up loads of properties over time forcing others to rent. Bearing in mind how much profit a lot of home builders make, increasing the regulations is likely to add at least £20K to a basic house, significantly more if you include mechanical ventilation, triple-glazed windows and heat pumps (perhaps +£50K), which is some cases will be 50%+ of the original cost! Another major problem is the quality of building in the UK, mainly driven by a lack of tradespeople, and simply not having the skills to install to the quality levels required by thermally efficient houses like installing a membrane with zero holes in it, using the correct tapes, designing, installing and maintaining heat pumpes and various other things. I think these challenges will get better over time but that is probably why governments aren't keen to make large improvements in energy-efficiency regulations.
  • bogle 5y ago
    > I think these challenges will get better over time but that is probably why governments aren't keen to make large improvements in energy-efficiency regulations. This is probably true but it's still backwards. The state should want to improve the affordability of housing and should consult with industry on which measures can be introduced but ultimately the state must introduce the new regulations to help drive the market in the direction of continuous improvements to the housing stock's long-term affordability. I think if they shirk this then they simply aren't doing the job properly.
  • Mvandenbergh 5y ago
    >Bearing in mind how much profit a lot of home builders make, increasing the regulations is likely to add at least £20K to a basic house, significantly more if you include mechanical ventilation, triple-glazed windows and heat pumps (perhaps +£50K), which is some cases will be 50%+ of the original cost! The sales price of houses in the UK (and elsewhere) is driven by the market and there is a low amount of released, buildable land and a lot of demand in the Southeast. The land value (a large component of the value) is not actually set in an independent market but is based on the expected sales price minus construction costs and development costs. Therefore increasing the built cost of properties will decrease the value of land likely to receive planning permission without affecting purchase price by much. The marginal cost of thicker walls is also very low (especially compared to retrofit costs) so the impact on construction cost is nothing like £50k.
• beAbU 5y ago
  Location and climate are very big factors when it comes to home insulation. The South African Highveld for example has an extremely mild climate. My house has no insulation in the ceilings, single pane windows, double brick walls with no insulation and air vents all over the place to the outside. The house was built in the 70s I think, using construction methods appropriate for that time. So ot very modern. I have no climate control in my house. And I don't need any. At the moment I'm considering some ceiling insulation, because in the middle of summer things can get toasty in the evening when the hot roof radiates back into the cool house.
• alkonaut 5y ago
  > Our designs combine generous ventilation with high insulation (140mm-thick wall framing combined with R4 wall insulation in the North Island – far above the Building Code requirements) NZ North Island is pretty extreme in its non-extremeness. It's near perfect for building homes that don't need excessive heating and cooling. From a global perspective, 140mm insulated framing is nothing. In any colder climate (such as the nordics) or hotter climate (such as the south US or southern Europe) a comfortable well-insulated wooden frame home needs at least 300mm insulation. That's also the code in e.g. Sweden.
• netjiro 5y ago
  Some guidelines for better, healthier, low energy, low cost house construction: Understand basic physics. Avoid the architecture-of-the-week construction trends. Set your targets: Size vs cost? How long do you expect to live there? Price of energy vs better insulation? Maintenance: type, frequency, amount, cost? How important is it for you to reduce the environmental impact? Start small and expand later, or start big and later rent out part of the house? Stay open minded about the solutions and designs. This makes a huge difference. The building codes and municipal restrictions are often the most limiting factors on how "good" a house you can build. Don't add _unnecessary_ restrictions on top of that. Look around at different solutions, not just what the local construction companies offer. Travel and see how things are solved in other countries. Use simple construction methods and design. Reduce the number of construction tasks necessary, and make each task simple. A significant real world problem with normal passivhaus construction is that while designed well, they are often very complex to actually build, and small mistakes by the construction crew can have a large impact on the energy requirements as well as cause health hazards. Well insulated windows, walls, floor and ceiling also drastically improve the comfort feeling of the house, not just the energy bill. When done right and coupled with properly designed ventilation they also improve the health aspects of the indoor environment. Many low energy houses built today require that the indoor air is kept very dry when the temperature difference between inside and outside increases. This has a lot of negative health effects. By choosing different insulation and interior materials they can be made to allow high indoor humidity. Your lungs, throat, nose, eyes and skin will thank you. Internal humidity around 50-60% also reduces air transmission of many viruses. Thermal mass is mentioned in some other posts here. Make sure to place it inside the insulation layer, not on the outside. Water and stone have similar high volumetric specific heat capacity. By using water circuits and storage, the mass can be moved out of the way, and often coupled to very efficient heating/cooling systems. We have developed a construction toolbox for houses and industrial buildings with very low total life cycle CO2 footprint, suitable for climates down to around 0C annual average temperature (northern Scandinavia, around the polar circle). They are fast and cheap to build and provide superb internal environment. If you're interested in more info I'm happy to share. You can ping us at StoneWoodGreyBeard at gmail.
• nikanj 5y ago
  The English have been building homes with virtually no heating since forever
• markvdb 5y ago
  If you have a large enough plot, consider building a home out of jumbo straw bales. Super insulating, easy and fast to build, cheap and eco.
• naikrovek 5y ago
  In 1989 my grandparents built a home with 12" thick walls (6" was normal at the time, in the area) and carefully vapor-sealed the entire house, taking extra special care to avoid holes which would let air move through the house in an unplanned way. They paid extra (a lot extra) for the highest insulation value available for the fiberglass rolls they installed in the outside walls. They double-stacked the insulation, as well, which is why they built the walls so thick. They poured the basement foundation on top of layers of foam insulation, and used piers (I don't know what they're called) down to the bedrock for structural integrity; the majority of the outside of basement floor was in contact only with insulation. Only 16-20 8" columns went through the insulation down to bedrock and could be good conduits for heat to the earth. All of the walls in the basement were double insulated from the earth they held back. That house was heated entirely by the heat that the water heater released through its insulation. Once or twice a year they would light a candle on the dining room table, to bring the heat back up if it ever got below what they felt was comfortable. Most days they had windows cracked open on opposite sides of the house in the middle of winter because it got too hot even with the furnace turned off entirely. It was never less than 75F in that house, even when it was -15F outside. I spent months on end in that house, just wondering when the furnace would come on. It never did. Not once while they lived there was the furnace ever needed. They lived in Missouri, US. Years later my grandfather realized that he had left the petcock which allowed hot water to circulate to the radiator over which air was blown and heated to circulate heat throughout the house closed for over a decade -- since the house was built. "I knew I wouldn't need this damn furnace. Building code requires it, and I fought that but lost." If you're careful, thoughtful, and determined, you can make a little bit of heat go a very long way. They were tired of paying heating bills. They paid to get rid of them, but they were rid of them.
  • WkndTriathlete 5y ago
    > In 1989 my grandparents built a home ... and carefully vapor-sealed the entire house In the upper Midwest there were a number of homes built this way in the 80s/90s. 10-15 years later they all had black mold (nasty health hazard) growing in the walls because moisture couldn't escape from the house. All homes are now required to have air-to-air heat exchangers for this reason.
• squigg 5y ago
  I met the founder(s) of ArchiPro at a cloud event in Wellington in either 2013 or 2014 - it is wonderful to see their idea not only be sustained but thrive, bravo!
  • Acen 5y ago
    Milot and Britt's vision for having an impact on the building industry is going to take a lot of work, but they're one of the few people that seem to have unlimited drive for it. - I worked as a dev for ArchiPro from March 20 - December 21
• poseva 5y ago
  I want to also to highlight the importance of the building airtightness (Air Changes per Hour) on the energy consumption needed for heating. I saw an example at some point in one of PassivHaus presentation and it was like this: 0.3 ACH -> 1.74 kWh/m2year (for a 100 sqm house means, 174 kwh per year for heating) 0.6 ACH -> 3.49 kWh/m2year (PassivHaus limit) 1.0 ACH -> 5.81 kWh/m2year 1.5 ACH -> 8.72 kWh/m2year (Low energy house limit) 4.5 ACH -> 26.5 kWh/m2*year (typical house) This is for the same house with the same insulation. Of course you cannot achieve this kind of airtightness without careful planning and using a lot of self-adhesive tape (SIGA, ROTHOBLASS and other manufactures that can guarantee its effectiveness up to 50 years)
• dahfizz 5y ago
  > Even in places known for their extreme weather conditions – such as ‘hot ‘n’ cold’ Otago, wind-prone Wellington and sweaty Auckland – high-performance homes will stay comfortable and fresh all the year round. All these places stay above 45F and below 80F. This is anything but extreme weather. You don't need any sort of special "high performance" house for this kind of temperate climate.
  • blackearl 5y ago
    Living in a true hot n cold New England USA makes me jealous that anyone would consider this extreme. It's sweater n t-shirt weather. I consider hot n cold being 100F in the summer and 0F in the winter.
• roamerz 5y ago
  In Oregon the new building code mandates that all air ducts and air handlers be located in conditioned space. Really good common sense regulation imho.
• hourislate 5y ago
  I've been touting the benefits of Spray Foam Insulation for years. It is actually incredible how much money you can save on HVAC every year. Your Heating and Cooling equipment can be halved in size and your living space is draft free and incredibly comfortable. Mate this with geothermal and your utility bills to heat and cool are equivalent to someones Starbucks habit (maybe less). If the North American building code was upgraded to a decent performance level (spray foam, triple pane windows, etc), we could probably get away with not having to build another power plant for decades.
  • turtlebits 5y ago
    Spray foam is very expensive and is not sustainable. Mineral wool/rockwool is also fairly popular but pricey as well. Also, it's not just adding insulation. Air tightness is hard problem to address for existing houses.
    • hourislate 5y ago
      Spray foam pays for itself, so it's basically free in the long run. Interesting enough people don't bat an eye when someone quotes them 20-30 k for a new Kitchen but if you quote someone 20-30 k to insulate their entire house they look at you like you killed their mother and sister. The average home has 2000 ft of linear cracks. Everything from poorly sealed doors, windows, and envelope. It's like the equivalent of keeping your front and back door open all year around. So even after spray foaming there is some leakage (blown door test). Really, Spray foam isn't that expensive, you should be paying about $3 -$4 a sq/ft at around a R-21 which is cheaper than most tile or carpet installations. https://huntsmanbuildingsolutions.com/en-US/ https://huntsmanbuildingsolutions.com/en-US/ If I were building a house I would probably go with ICF forms all the way up and Spray Foam the attic and basement floor (under the concrete floor). If I were renovating, I would Spray Foam and try to make the job large enough to cover the contractors minimum charge. Even a couple of rooms can really help the utility bills.
      • turtlebits 5y ago
        Double stud construction with blown in cellulose is much cheaper than spray foam, and way better for the environment. Also, if you want close to passive house, you'll need way more than R-21. I would say only use spray foam if your wall cavity is limited and you need the maximum R value.
• shalmanese 5y ago
  People fail to appreciate how much leveraged financing affects the design of houses. If you pay 100% for a house and you decide to build something only you appreciate using 10% of your budget, you will lose 10% of your investment when selling the house. If you put down 20% and have the bank finance 80%, then the same decision will wipe out 50% of your investment. This means for financed houses, "resale value" becomes the preeminent decision affecting the design of a house. In Economics, this is known as a "Keynesian Beauty Contest" [1] where your job is to predict what everyone else predicts will be the most popular option and Keynesian Beauty Contests can get weird. eg: It's quite possible that you might personally hate granite countertops but still feel the need to put a granite countertop in your home because you believe it will help the resale value of your home. It's quite possible for everyone in a community to all hate granite countertops but for everyone to still put granite countertops in their home because they believe everyone else loves granite countertops. It's quite possible for everyone in a community to hate granite countertops and to know that everyone else hates granite countertops and still make the economically rational decision to put a granite countertop in their house to help with the resale value. A lot of "economically irrational" housing decisions are driven by this core transformation via Mortgage Backed Securities of a house from a consumption based purchase of a place to enjoy living into an investment asset that dominates most people's finances. It's only in houses built for the independently wealthy that don't really care about the future resale value of their houses that a lot of the good building science expertise still lies. That's why, paradoxically, in countries much poorer than the US/UK/Aus/NZ, you see much better building quality because their finance systems are also less developed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest
  • gruez 5y ago
    >That's why, paradoxically, in countries much poorer than the US/UK/Aus/NZ, you see much better building quality because their finance systems are also less developed. source? China isn't well known for their well built buildings for example.
    • oldsecondhand 5y ago
      I can't give you hard stats, but in Hungary in the 80s (i.e. socialist times) people were building their own houses in the villages (i.e. with the help from extended family only hiring tradesman when you don't have that trade in family) so there was little reason to cut corners. It also avoided the cookie cutter look of American suburbs. These are brick houses, so they're quite sturdy, and could be modernized by adding external insulation. Most of these houses were built with double glazed windows to begin with, so I was pretty surprised that in Britain or Spain it isn't default.
• stakkur 5y ago
  You mean like Earthships, a modern idea decades old? https://www.earthshipglobal.com/ https://www.earthshipglobal.com/ What I like about Earthships is they attempt a wholistic answer to the gnarly nexus of housing access, resource use, and self-sufficiency, and do it in a simple, beautiful way. The ideas and methods already exist; we don't need architect-designed glass/steel boxes or exotic manufacturing techniques and materials.
• deleted 5y ago
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• johndhi 5y ago
  Any tips for me? I live in Northern California in a house that (1) has an empty space below it, (2) single-pane windows, (3) an inefficient fireplace with no steel stove, (4) a big, cavernous room with high, un-insulated ceilings on one half of the house. Obviously we could spend a zillion dollars to insulate everything and fix all of the problems I identified above (and probably more), but what is critical? One thing we started with is putting a thermal curtain between the big, drafty room and the rest of the house so that the thermometer doesn't get triggered by the big room sucking the hot air out of the rest of the house.
  • chipsa 5y ago
    The bigger the room, the higher the ceiling has to be to feel comfortable. I'd still insulate the ceiling of the big room, but I wouldn't necessarily lower it. Instead, put in a ceiling fan so that the air doesn't stratify. Fireplace isn't critical unless you're actually using it for heating.
  • poseva 5y ago
    1. I would start by lowering the ceiling and insulating it. For ceiling if you insulate it using mineral wool, or glass wool... the vapor barrier [0] is critical and must be placed continuously on the warm part. Also this membrane (preferably containing aluminum so that you get back some of the heat) must be glued to the walls using special glue [1] 2. I would change the windows, with at least triple pane. The windows must be mounted correctly (see RAL montage) and also must be placed aligned with the outside face of the wall. 3. I would take out the floor, and do hydronic underfloor heating with EPS150 or XPS as insulation substrate. [0] https://www.rothoblaas.com/products/airtightness-and-waterproofing/membranes/barrier/barrier-alu-net-sd1500 https://www.rothoblaas.com/products/airtightness-and-waterpr... [1] https://www.rothoblaas.com/products/airtightness-and-waterproofing/tapes-and-sealants/sealants-foams-and-liquid-membranes/superb-glue https://www.rothoblaas.com/products/airtightness-and-waterpr...
    • johndhi 5y ago
      Thank you! what price do you think we're looking at for each of these? lowering the ceiling is a bit of a bummer from a looks perspective. underfloor heating sounds wonderful.
• dakna 5y ago
  While I certainly dream of building a true passive house, it is much more reasonable to follow the Pretty Good House approach, in it's current 2.0 version described here: https://www.prettygoodhouse.org/pgh-20 https://www.prettygoodhouse.org/pgh-20 As with most engineering efforts, the last 20% of optimization tend to be costly. But covering the basics (mainly around insulation and air-sealing) has a huge impact already without increasing upfront costs by the same ratio. Also the wall/roof assembly needs to match the climate for the region, mainly because of the dew point and how it relates to temperature and moisture differences between inside/outside. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point
• elliottkember 5y ago
  If you are interested in this, you may like The Zen Of Passive Solar Heating: http://www.iedu.com/Solar/Panels/ http://www.iedu.com/Solar/Panels/ which is one of my favourite online project logs.
• dghughes 5y ago
  I really think many people don't pay enough attention to insulating homes they think solar panels, heat pumps etc.. But don't think of why the house is too hot or too cold. It's all just moving energy around cold is absence of heat but you hear of people say "cold is coming in" really it's heat escaping. I'm going to try my hand at insulation my parent's home. Dad died last year he built the house and everything in it and on it. He was sick for 15 years so maintenance was difficult. I'm looking at Rockwool for the attic most heat is lost through the roof. The pull down stairs are terrible for heat loss. Heat bridging is also what I want to tackle too I'll cover joists perpendicularly. Stuffing the attic with insulation is easier than solar or a heat pump. For now.